Sociolinguistics

Definitions:

Society: "any group of people who are drawn together for a certain purpose or purposes"
Language: "what the members of a particular society speak"

What does it mean to know a language?

Language is a hyponym of code.
Grammar is the system shared by people who share the same code
Variety is present in performance. It is, however, not random variety, and it is a part of knowing a language.

Code-Switching:

“Linguistic alternation symbolizing differing social identities”

Definition:

Most speakers command multiple codes;
Code-switching is "a conversational strategy used to establish, cross or destroy group boundaries; to create, evoke or change interpersonal relations with their rights and obligations";
Code switching is a speech style in which fluent bilinguals move in and out of
two (or conceivably more) languages.
The juxtaposition within the same speech exchange of passages of speech belonging to two different grammatical systems or subsystems. (Gumperz 1982)

Types of code-switching:

1. Tag-switching
2. Intersentential
3. Intrasentential

1. Tag-switching:

This involves the insertion of a tag in one language into an utterance that is otherwise entirely in the other language
Example: So he asked me for money, znas#, and I had to say no, znas#
The tag here is Serbian for ‘you know’

2. Intersentential:

This is the type of switch which happens between sentences. Sometimes he start a sentence in English y terminó in español (Poplack 1980)
3. Intrasentential:

This type of code-switching happens within a single sentence or even a single phrase.
You have to find a kalo pedi (good guy) and marry him (English-Greek)


Functions and Reasons for code-switching:

Participants
Topic
Situation
Metaphorical switching
Conversational functions” of code-switching

Participants:

nIf a group of people are talking in one language and a non-speaker enters, they will switch
nIf people want to avoid being understood by a third person they will switch to a code that he or she does not understand

Topic:

nDepending on the topic of discussion, participants will choose among the available linguistic codes
nWhen my sister who is a speech therapist and I discuss linguistics we speak in English, but we use Greek for every other topic.

Situational code-switching:

nSituational code-switching language change according to the situation in which the conversant find themselves;
nMany times the social situation that interlocutors find themselves in dictates the code that they must use.
nThis is similar to the notion of domain, except that you can have two or more different situations in a single setting.
nE.g. Lecture period vs. Q&A period.

Metaphorical Code-switching:

nThis reason for code-switching is even more elusive. Here the interlocutors are in control of the choice, using a particular variety to allude to their relationship with the other person.
nIn it language change according change of topic; Metaphorical code-switches redefine the situation (e.g., formal to informal, official to personal, serious to humorous, politeness to solidarity, they-reference to we-reference);Code-switching conventions are group-specific;

Conversational functions” of code-switching:

nInterest in why bilinguals alternate languages has been a main theme in the code-switching literature, and “conversational functions” of code-switching, such as quotation, repetition, emphasis, etc., can be found in early research on code-switching (e.g. Rayfield 1970—see appendix). What is interesting is that, as more work has been done on various language-pairs in different bilingual communities, many of these so-called “conversational functions” are found to be overlapping across different language-pairs in various bilingual communities. In other words, given the gigantic variety of different contexts in different communities where code-switching is used, some “spots” do appear to be quite universal in code-switching, which is somehow inconsistent with the common view that linguistic interpretation (pragmatics) is language use (vs competence) prone to wide-ranging variation (vs universal principles).

Sometimes people code-switch for rhetorical reasons, drawing on the associations of both codes. Each of the codes represents a set of social meanings, and the speaker draws on the associations of each, just as people use metaphors to represent complex meanings. The term also reflects the fact that this kind of switching involves rhetorical skills and is used to enrich the communication.

Borrowing or Loan-Words:
Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language (the source language). A loanword can also be called a borrowing. The abstract noun borrowing refers to the process of speakers adopting words from a source language into their native language. "Loan" and "borrowing" are of course metaphors, because there is no literal lending process. There is no transfer from one language to another, and no "returning" words to the source language. They simply come to be used by a speech community that speaks a different language from the one they originated in.

Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contact between two language communities. Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the two languages in contact, but often there is an asymmetry, such that more words go from one side to the other. In this case the source language community has some advantage of power, prestige and/or wealth that makes the objects and ideas it brings desirable and useful to the borrowing language community. For example, the Germanic tribes in the first few centuries A.D. adopted numerous loanwords from Latin as they adopted new products via trade with the Romans. Few Germanic words, on the other hand, passed into Latin.

The actual process of borrowing is complex and involves many usage events (i.e. instances of use of the new word). Generally, some speakers of the borrowing language know the source language too, or at least enough of it to utilize the relevant words. They adopt them when speaking the borrowing language. If they are bilingual in the source language, which is often the case, they might pronounce the words the same or similar to the way they are pronounced in the source language. For example, English speakers adopted the word garage from French, at first with a pronunciation nearer to the French pronunciation than is now usually found. Presumably the very first speakers who used the word in English knew at least some French and heard the word used by French speakers.
Those who first use the new word might use it at first only with speakers of the source language who know the word, but at some point they come to use the word with those to whom the word was not previously known. To these speakers the word may sound 'foreign'. At this stage, when most speakers do not know the word and if they hear it think it is from another language, the word can be called a foreign word. There are many foreign words and phrases used in English such as bon vivant (French), mutatis mutandis (Latin), and Fahrvergnuegen (German).

However, in time more speakers can become familiar with a new foreign word. The community of users can grow to the point where even people who know little or nothing of the source language understand, and even use the novel word themselves. The new word becomes conventionalized. At this point we call it a borrowing or loanword. (Not all foreign words do become loanwords; if they fall out of use before they become widespread, they do not reach the loanword stage.)

English has gone through many periods in which large numbers of words from a particular language were borrowed. These periods coincide with times of major cultural contact between English speakers and those speaking other languages. The waves of borrowing during periods of especially strong cultural contacts are not sharply delimited, and can overlap. For example, the Norse influence on English began already in the 8th century A.D. and continued strongly well after the Norman Conquest brought a large influx of Norman French to the language.

It is part of the cultural history of English speakers that they have always adopted loanwords from the languages of whatever cultures they have come in contact with.
Dutch,FlemishShipping, naval terms , boom, bow, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, dock, freight, keel, keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper, sloop, smuggle, splice, tackle, yawl, yacht coleslaw, cookie, cranberry, crullers, gin, hops, stockfish, waffle
Other bugger (orig. French), crap, curl, dollar, scum, split (orig. nautical term), uproar
Spanisharmada, adobe, alligator, alpaca, armadillo, barricade, bravado, cannibal, canyon, coyote, desperado, embargo, enchilada, guitar, marijuana, mesa, mosquito, mustang, ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla, vigilante
Italianalto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco,fugue, gazette (via French), ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni,madrigal, motto, piano, opera, pantaloons, prima donna, regatta,sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio, tempo, torso,umbrella, viola, violin,
Code-switching VS borrowing:

Another way in which different verities may become mixed up with each with each other is through the process of borrowing. It is obvious what is meant by ‘borrowing’ when an item is taken over lock, stock and barrel from one variety into another, e.g. when the name of a French dish like boeuf bourguignon is borrowed for use as an English term. English speakers who know that the item is a part of the foreign language simply reclassify the item by changing its social description from ‘French’ to ‘English’. In contrast with code-switching, this does not in fact involve any change of verity when such an item is used in an English like Let’s have some beouf bourguignon, since beouf bourguignon is now part of the English language as for as speaker is concerned. If on the other hand the speaker had said Let’s have du boeuf bourguignon, he would have been code-switching since the word du ‘some’ is French but not English, and would only occur with a French noun, so we might predict fairly safely that Let’s have du bread would never occur, unless bread have been borrowed from English into French and therefore counted as a French word. Words like du are ofcource much less likely to be borrowed as individual atoms than words like boeuf bourguignon, simply because there is likely to be no need for them in the borrowing variety.

The basic difference between a code-switch and a borrowing is that a borrowing has an L1 history. It was originally introduced by bilinguals, but now even monolinguals recognize it as part of the language, i.e., part of the lexicon of L1—part of a single grammar. Code-switches do not have this history. They show real-time decision making of a speaker who controls two grammars—at least in part. They are brought into the stream of speech consciously, as part of L2—a speaker’s second grammar. But the basic insight is that a borrowing is part of L1, and a code-switch is part of L2.whether or not a form is part of L1 or L2 is impossible to distinguish, so scholars have tried to formalize the distinction, albeit with limited success.

Myers-Scotton (1992) claims that borrowing and code-switching belong on the same continuum. Borrowings start out historically as code-switches or what Poplack calls nonce or one-time borrowings (1980), which with time and usage become part of the lexicon of L1. Myers-Scotton’s first and main heuristic for determining the difference between a borrowing and a code-switch is frequency. Borrowings are oft repeated. Used once, they can be used again; they can catch on, and then spread, often due to perceived “lexical gaps” in the L1, i.e., meanings for which there are no apparent L1 terms. Corollary(consequence) to their repeatability is the fact that borrowings can occur in widely differing contexts, and they tend to be single words, which would be far more repeatable and versatile than extended phrases. Second, borrowings show a greater degree of phonological integration than code-switches. This is not a water-tight differentiation, however, since it seems self evident that a Spanish speaker speaking Spanish, for example, would pronounce even clear code-switches to English with a “Spanish accent”. This accent (which is plainly a type of phonological integration of Spanish into English) would not make the code-switch a borrowing).